Negotiators from six nations struggled to agree on a "road map" for ending North Korea's nuclear programme Friday as differences surfaced over how North Korea should disable its facilities before finally dismantling them, according to dpa. South Korean officials said the six teams met for just 10 minutes Friday after delays to allow for more bilateral consultations, South Korea's Yonhap news agency reported. "I don't have any good news," the agency quoted Chun Yung Woo, the chief South Korean negotiator, as saying after Friday's talks. "For now, I think we still have a lot of consultations to do rather than to be optimistic," Chun said. Chun said earlier that differences remained over how North Korea would disable its nuclear facilities. Yonhap quoted US negotiator Christopher Hill as saying Thursday that the United States wanted a level of disablement that would make it hard for North Korea to re-enable its nuclear facilities within 12 months. Hill said North Korea was able to restart its previously frozen nuclear plants in just two months in 2003. He said agreement was reached on "most of the disablement measures" between the officials from North Korea, the United States, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia. The sticking points were believed to include the removal from North Korea of components from key nuclear facilities. The six parties were also considering a "special management plan" for the disablement and handling of radioactive components from the disabled nuclear facilities, Yonhap said. Hill said earlier that the six nations had planned to discuss a joint statement that would require the disablement of North Korea's main nuclear facilities and a full declaration of all nuclear sites by the end of this year. Hill met his North Korean counterpart, Kim Kye Gwan, at least twice since he arrived in Beijing Wednesday evening. After more than three years of six-party negotiations, North Korea agreed in February to abandon its nuclear programme in return for fuel oil shipments and the eventual normalization of US-North Korean relations that have been on ice since the 1950-53 Korean War. The latest round of talks was scheduled to end Sunday.
